Between school and university I spent a year in Malawi. I went out with the excellent Project Trust who sent me out with a Dutch guy called Simon. For most of our time there we worked as a teachers in the morning and helped out at a place called Hope for a Hopeless Child (HHC) in the afternoon.
HHC was run by a guy called Samuel Kayuni, with his wife Hannah. Samuel had lived on the streets for some years as a child, and this experience gave him a real heart for all kids who find themselves in that situation. He started taking in orphans and children that were abandoned by their families and looking after them as if they were his own.
By the time we started working with them at the end of 2002 the Kayuni family had over 20 children, all of them taken in and cared for as if they were their biological children. Three more arrived in the 8 months that we were there.
HHC is still going strong under the new name of Children with Hope and Destiny (CHAD). So far it’s been largely supported by donations from America, but Samuel’s interested in building up some links with churches in the UK. With that aim he’s coming over to the UK for the next few weeks to meet a few people, speak at some events, and catch up with me and my family.
We’ll see how it goes, but it’s certainly going to be great to see Samuel again. I haven’t seen him since I left Malawi in August 2003.
Here’s a picture of the Kayuni family (complete with “uncles” and “aunts”) at Christmas in 2002.
